So much for the American Dream...
In a sudden fit of curiosity, spurred by some mild discontent with my current accommodations, I decided to take a look at what kinds of properties were available as foreclosure sales in Davis County. I figured there'd be a few...
As of five minutes ago, the site (one of several!) had over 1000 houses that were up for sale due to foreclosures, bankruptcies, and similar financial causes. Some of them had been listed for so long that they were classified as 'inactive' (I can only assume this means that the realtors didn't find the properties appealing enough to purchase and they've been sitting vacant, with no further action being taken...)
And yet, our society is being encouraged to hurry out and spend, hand over fist...why buy a car, when you can lease? At the end of four years, you won't be any closer to owning anything...but if you were only going to drive the car for four years, you'd be making new payments all over again, right? (But what about those of us that will buy a car we REALLY like, and drive it until the wheels fall off?) Buy on credit...it's good for the economy! You, too, can have this nifty new toy, just like your neighbors...in fact, we won't even charge you a cent for it until the start of next year!
But only an occasional public service announcement points out that all of this excess DOES have a price, that people need to try and save...or, at the very least, stop going further in debt! The prices of some of the homes that had been foreclosed were astonishing...most had not yet had prices posted, but out of those that did have them, at least two were well over $600,000. Who NEEDS a home that expensive? The average seemed to be somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000, but that's just off the top of my head--I didn't keep a list and calculate. Those just seemed to be the numbers I saw the most (at 2 am, that recollection may be suspect...) That's still close to a decade's worth of income for me.
It's no wonder our country's screwed up. It becomes a 'chicken or the egg' problem, whether our own fiscal frivolity worked up the line to Congress, or started there and worked down...but within ten miles of me, a thousand homes are vacant right now, because their families couldn't manage to live up to their own dreams. Someone convinced them they could...and someone lied.
I don't know...maybe I'm the only one that will be distressed by this. I doubt it. I don't see how I could possibly be the only one who would like to have a more permanent, secure, spacious residence, but can't afford it because our national taste for the good life has put the price tag well beyond my reach.
Yes, I'd love to own my own home. But you can bet I'm going into the idea with a healthy dose of skepticism. I can think of a few things worse than my current living situation--and one of them would be to think I'd finally escaped it, only to have it thrust upon me once again. We'll see what the future brings...
In a sudden fit of curiosity, spurred by some mild discontent with my current accommodations, I decided to take a look at what kinds of properties were available as foreclosure sales in Davis County. I figured there'd be a few...
As of five minutes ago, the site (one of several!) had over 1000 houses that were up for sale due to foreclosures, bankruptcies, and similar financial causes. Some of them had been listed for so long that they were classified as 'inactive' (I can only assume this means that the realtors didn't find the properties appealing enough to purchase and they've been sitting vacant, with no further action being taken...)
And yet, our society is being encouraged to hurry out and spend, hand over fist...why buy a car, when you can lease? At the end of four years, you won't be any closer to owning anything...but if you were only going to drive the car for four years, you'd be making new payments all over again, right? (But what about those of us that will buy a car we REALLY like, and drive it until the wheels fall off?) Buy on credit...it's good for the economy! You, too, can have this nifty new toy, just like your neighbors...in fact, we won't even charge you a cent for it until the start of next year!
But only an occasional public service announcement points out that all of this excess DOES have a price, that people need to try and save...or, at the very least, stop going further in debt! The prices of some of the homes that had been foreclosed were astonishing...most had not yet had prices posted, but out of those that did have them, at least two were well over $600,000. Who NEEDS a home that expensive? The average seemed to be somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000, but that's just off the top of my head--I didn't keep a list and calculate. Those just seemed to be the numbers I saw the most (at 2 am, that recollection may be suspect...) That's still close to a decade's worth of income for me.
It's no wonder our country's screwed up. It becomes a 'chicken or the egg' problem, whether our own fiscal frivolity worked up the line to Congress, or started there and worked down...but within ten miles of me, a thousand homes are vacant right now, because their families couldn't manage to live up to their own dreams. Someone convinced them they could...and someone lied.
I don't know...maybe I'm the only one that will be distressed by this. I doubt it. I don't see how I could possibly be the only one who would like to have a more permanent, secure, spacious residence, but can't afford it because our national taste for the good life has put the price tag well beyond my reach.
Yes, I'd love to own my own home. But you can bet I'm going into the idea with a healthy dose of skepticism. I can think of a few things worse than my current living situation--and one of them would be to think I'd finally escaped it, only to have it thrust upon me once again. We'll see what the future brings...
posted by Curtis at 1:31 AM
2 Comments:
Yeah - come see Euan and invite anyone who can make it. It is free to all.
If I didn't get into a house when I did, I never would have.
It's brand new out in the boonies,3 bed 2 bath w/ unfinished basment @ $117,000 2 half years ago.
Brother in the same neighborhood,same size house $130,000. Couldn't buy now.
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